New York Birth Certificates

Updated March 2017

Since the Sylvia Rivera Law Project opened our doors in 2002, we have been at the forefront of the battle to make birth certificate changes more accessible to transgender people. Since 1971, New York City and State’s rules for a person changing their gender on their birth certificate had been very restrictive, requiring extensive evidence of invasive surgeries that many transgender people do not undergo – whether for financial, health, or personal reasons. Without a birth certificate accurately reflecting their current gender, trans people can face serious obstacles in accessing employment, housing, services, and other critical identity documents. Having documentation that doesn’t match your current gender can often trigger bias, harassment, discrimination, physical violence, or groundless accusations of fraud.

While our battle for a New York City and New York State birth certificate policy that didn’t require proof of surgery was a success in December 2014, we continue our fight for prisoners, youth born in New York State, and transgender parents, the ability to self-attest to your gender, fee waivers, and gender marker options that reflect the diversity of the TGNCI community, such as non-binary designations or designations for gender non-conforming people, non-binary people, and intersex people who want a designation other than male or female.

The materials linked below document the history of our work on this issue and may be helpful to activists working on similar issues elsewhere. Read about some of our work here:

October – November 2014: New York City Council proposed a policy that will allow transgender people to change the gender marker on their birth certificate without undergoing surgery. SRLP participates in public hearings with City Council on 11/10/14 and the Department of Health on 11/17/14.

June 2014: New York State updated its birth certificate policy toallow transgender New Yorkers to change the gender marker on their birth certificate without undergoing surgery. While a positive step in our work to increase access to identity documents for trans people, this policy excludes people born in New York City, youth, and people in prison.